EWTN News reports that Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, speaking at a gathering hosted by King Abdullah II of Jordan at the baptism site of Jesus Christ (Bethany Beyond the Jordan), called for the site to remain “a living place of encounter with God” and welcomed the Jordanian government’s initiative to commemorate the 2,000th anniversary of Christ’s baptism in 2030. Pizzaballa praised the king’s leadership as “a living example of how faith can become a bridge between peoples and a foundation for peace in the world,” while Church leaders described the jubilee as “a historic opportunity to strengthen Christian unity and renew the meaning of pilgrimage.” The entire event, framed in the language of UNESCO heritage, interreligious reconciliation, and global spiritual tourism, is a textbook example of how the conciliar sect has emptied the supernatural reality of the Faith and replaced it with naturalistic humanism dressed in liturgical vestments.
The Baptism of Christ Reduced to a “Living Place” of Vague Encounter
Pizzaballa’s central assertion — that “the baptism of Christ is not merely a historical memory but an eternal event that continues to speak to every believer” — is a masterwork of equivocation. On its surface, it sounds orthodox. But what does it actually mean in the context of his remarks? The cardinal does not speak of the baptism of Christ as the moment when the Holy Trinity was manifestly revealed — the Father’s voice, the Son in the flesh, the Holy Spirit descending as a dove — nor as the institution of the sacrament of baptism by which souls are regenerated and incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ. Instead, he reduces it to a “living place” where “visitors do not simply come to see but encounter God and rediscover the depth of their own baptism.”
This is the language of the conciliar revolution: the focus is shifted from the objective, supernatural reality of what Christ accomplished to the subjective, experiential “encounter” of the individual. It is the theology of Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate and Dignitatis Humanae applied to sacred history — the mysteries of Faith become occasions for personal reflection and interreligious diplomacy rather than dogmatic truths demanding assent and conversion. As Pope Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus of Errors, Proposition 20: “The ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government.” Here, the “ecclesiastical power” — Pizzaballa — does not merely seek the assent of the civil government but actively celebrates it as a partner in the spiritual enterprise.
“Christian Unity” Without the Catholic Faith
The article states that Church leaders described the 2030 jubilee as “a historic opportunity to strengthen Christian unity.” One must ask: What unity? The Catholic Church has always taught that unity is founded on unity of faith, unity of sacraments, and unity of governance under the Roman Pontiff. The “Christian unity” envisioned at Bethany Beyond the Jordan — where “Christian churches of various denominations have each been allocated land to construct religious buildings” — is not Catholic unity but the false ecumenism condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos (1928), where he warned that “the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it.”
The baptism site, according to the article, is administered by a commission that allocates land to “various denominations.” This is not the Catholic Church exercising its divine mandate to teach, govern, and sanctify all nations. This is a interreligious theme park where the baptism of the Incarnate Son of God is treated as a shared heritage of “Christianity” in the abstract — a concept that has no theological meaning in Catholic doctrine. As the Syllabus of Errors condemned in Proposition 18: “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church.” Pizzaballa’s silence on the exclusive salvific mission of the Catholic Church is not an oversight; it is the very essence of the conciliar apostasy.
Praising a Muslim Monarch as a Model of “Faith”
Perhaps the most scandalous element of the article is Pizzaballa’s effusive praise of King Abdullah II: “In this blessed land, we see in your leadership a living example of how faith can become a bridge between peoples and a foundation for peace in the world.” Let us be precise: King Abdullah II is a Muslim. He professes Islam, a religion that denies the divinity of Christ, the Trinity, the Redemption, and the sacramental economy of salvation. And yet Pizzaballa — a cardinal of the Roman Church, or at least a man occupying that title in the conciliar structure — holds him up as a model of “faith” and a “foundation for peace.”
This is not merely diplomatic courtesy. This is the practical implementation of Vatican II’s teaching that other religions “often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men” (Nostra Aetate, 2). It is the heresy of religious indifferentism, condemned by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1832): “The absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone.” It is the fruit of the conciliar sect’s systematic demolition of the Church’s missionary mandate. As Pope Leo XIII wrote in Immortale Dei (1885), the state must recognize the Catholic Church as the one true religion, and rulers who do not are not to be praised but called to conversion.
Pizzaballa does not call King Abdullah to baptism. He does not even hint that the king’s soul is in peril. Instead, he presents the Muslim monarch’s protection of a Christian holy site as evidence that “faith” — any faith, apparently — can be a “bridge between peoples.” This is the abomination of desolation speaking from the temple.
The 2030 Jubilee: A Counterfeit Jubilee for a Counterfeit Church
The announcement of a “Jubilee of Christ’s Baptism” in 2030 is rich with irony. The Jubilee in Catholic tradition is a year of remission of sins and debts, granted by the authority of the Roman Pontiff to the faithful who fulfill certain conditions — confession, communion, prayer for the pope’s intentions, and visits to the basilicas of Rome. It is an exercise of the Church’s power of the keys, rooted in the Petrine authority.
What Pizzaballa and the Jordanian government are planning is not a Catholic jubilee. It is a state-sponsored tourism initiative wrapped in religious language. The “preparations” mentioned — “upgrading infrastructure and services,” “training of staff,” “development of facilities” — are the language of event management, not of the supernatural life of the Church. There is no mention of the sacraments, no mention of the necessity of conversion to the Catholic Faith, no mention of the authority of the Roman Pontiff. The “jubilee” is envisioned as “a global spiritual event” — the kind of vague, inclusive, experiential spirituality that the conciliar sect has been promoting since 1958.
The UNESCO Framework: Sacred Sites as Cultural Heritage
The article notes that UNESCO inscribed the baptism site on its World Heritage List in 2015. This is not a neutral fact. The UNESCO framework treats sacred sites as “cultural heritage” — objects of historical and anthropological interest, not places of supernatural encounter demanding the response of faith. By operating within this framework, the conciliar structures implicitly accept the secular, naturalistic premise that the baptism of Christ is a “cultural” event rather than the theophany that inaugurated the public ministry of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man.
This is consistent with the conciliar sect’s broader project of reconciling the Church with the modern world — a project that Pope Pius IX condemned in the final proposition of the Syllabus of Errors, Proposition 80: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” The baptism site, in Pizzaballa’s vision, is not a place where the faithful come to adore Christ the King and renew their baptismal promises in the one true Church. It is a “beacon of reconciliation and hope” — the language of the United Nations, not of the Gospel.
The Silence That Condemns
What is absent from this article is as damning as what is present. There is no mention of the necessity of the Catholic Faith for salvation. There is no mention of the sacrament of baptism as the means by which souls are freed from original sin and incorporated into Christ. There is no mention of the Church’s divine mandate to teach all nations. There is no mention of the authority of the Roman Pontiff. There is no mention of the state’s duty to profess the Catholic Faith publicly. There is no mention of the errors of Islam or the duty of Muslims to embrace the Gospel.
Instead, we have “encounter,” “unity,” “peace,” “reconciliation,” “hope,” and “coexistence” — the entire lexicon of the conciliar revolution, deployed to transform the baptism of the Son of God into a platform for interreligious dialogue and cultural diplomacy. This is not the Catholic Faith. This is the abomination of desolation standing in a holy place (Matthew 24:15), and Pizzaballa is its herald.
Source:
Christ’s baptism site must remain living place of encounter with God, Cardinal Pizzaballa says (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 21.05.2026